


Night

by LNJames



Series: Suddenly Everything Has Changed [7]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-14
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-09-18 08:06:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16991196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LNJames/pseuds/LNJames
Summary: Consider the hummingbird for a long moment.Season 3/4 re-imagined. Canonish, with liberties and justice for all.





	Night

_No other faith is light enough for this place_

If she were honest, if she wanted to admit the truth to no one else but herself, Lena Luthor would point to one or two crystal clear moments that led her to tonight. One catalyst for the slip, as she liked to gently refer to it, happened on a blue sky day in National City. Perfect weather, perfect sun. Behind her stood a shining statue of a woman in flight and if Lena was going to build a monument to love and bravery, she would build it to last. Except it did not because the sky rained explosive blasts and the next thing she knew, she was on her knees. In the chaos, she found herself praying to anything that would listen for Kara to emerge from the cold dark depths of the water. O _ne Mississippi, Two Mississippi, Three Mississippi._ Counting the seconds of a life being lost fundamentally shook loose something inside of her again. She didn’t breathe until Kara flew high into the sky holding tons of steel and looking like a ghost who had won the battle, but lost something of herself in the process.

Another slide came in the dark of the night when she watched Kara fall, cape fluttering out like broken wings until she lay crumpled and defeated in a crater. Christmas made the whole scene feel macabre. The sound of Supergirl..of Kara’s.. body slamming into concrete was the stuff of her nightmares and woke her up from a dead sleep to remind her of what she could lose. The sound of that crushing fall was a klaxon jolting her awake whenever she slept alone. It took whatever it took to erase that image from her eyes, some nights scotch, other times something chemical to obliterate and burn and drown out the whole scene. Lena chased very few of her demons away because she felt living with them made her stronger but this one..this one made her weak.

In reality, there was no time of day that was safe from what scared her the most and Lena Luthor was not about to let fear get the best of her. She did not get where she was without putting such things aside in pursuit of a life in spite of what hers brought with it. ‘Such things’, as she liked to call them, were feelings and emotions and hidden fears and she had learned early on, very early on, that those were most dangerous, paralyzing forms of weakness if she weren’t careful. It was logical, really, for a small girl who watched her own mother drown to wonder if her fear was the reason why all of the counting in the world wouldn’t bring her back. Loss so early sinks deep and Lena had found plenty of depth inside her for such things.

Now, in the quiet of her dim gray-white office high above National City, she closed her eyes and exhaled. The night sky was a cloudy soup obscuring most things. The buildings around her were there, of course, golden lights still shining despite everything. Sharp contrasts between the world around her and the events that happened were no longer jarring. Lena realized that the sun would continue to shine even if the world was ending. She realized that people continued to celebrate and live their lives when others were suffering or passing away quietly. Life did not stop even when it did.

Was it possible to cure loss? She had toyed with what was easier: Finding ways to keep Kara safe from the few things that could harm her or finding ways that she herself could live forever. It might have been crazy talk or crazy thoughts for anyone else and maybe it was for her as well if she were being honest. A curious mind might ask the question, but a brilliant mind would find the answer no matter the cost. This was her blessing and her curse if she believed in either of those things. With a deep breath, Lena opened her eyes and stared off into the distance, lifting a device to her lips.

“We have concluded our first human trial...test subject 0331…”

***

Here was a parting thought: It wasn’t that dying scared her, because it did not. Lena had witnessed death from every angle, even watching as a spirit rose out of the water and away from her. With her mother gone and the chilly replacement family she received, everything was cold after that. As she got older, Lena Luthor turned life and death into an exact science. She studied it abstractly, clinically. She watched as cells flourished or languished. She observed cells that mutated and cells that ate themselves up because there was nothing else to keep them alive. Life and death at the cellular level and Lena was hooked on the impersonal science of it all the minute she looked into a microscope. It seemed solvable, easy even. Keep cells alive. Identify why cells died and eliminate each cause in turn. Methodically solve for every _y_ when _x_ was a typical cell with normal properties and ordinary functions, factor in random variations and fluctuations and non-linear behavior. Sequence DNA, extract imperfections, identify protein receptors, find weaknesses, solve the problem. Solve the problem, Lena. Forget the feeling, focus on the science.

The Luthors were nothing short of experts on the art and science of death. Lionel sowed the seeds, Lillian cultivated the fields, and Lex perfected the methods and means. When Lena was growing up, no one ever said the words of what they did specifically, her family did not discuss their business in that way. They talked instead of noble causes, of righteous imperatives, and of the greater good and a better life - for humans. Luthor Corporation was saving the human race through better technology, but what it really meant was that the Luthors’ brand of science was dark and deadly and dangerous. The end justified the means and the means were lethal. How could Lena put such things into any kind of perspective as a small child? Is it any wonder? Was it any surprise to her, really, that her own life would be threatened over and over again because of her name? Lena finally lost count of how many times she nearly died. It was like counting her own seconds in Mississippis that never ended. What did it matter, in the end, when death was an inevitable result of living and she had her preferences. How she lived her life was one thing, how she felt about herself dying was another.

All of that is perhaps why she had a fleeting moment of clarity when her coffee smelled faintly of almonds and her throat contracted, forcing an acrid foam to choke her. Poison was so obvious it wasn’t even an afterthought when thoughts were quickly fading. Lena Luthor had been poisoned on a sunny morning at work when National City was just getting started. She and James had already had a run in before breakfast with Morgan Edge and his brand of verbal threats. She couldn’t help but remember how close she came to slipping into the ways of her family - pulling a trigger weeks before to cause massive cellular damage to an arrogant man. Revenge could taste sweet too, she had to admit, even now as she felt herself fall to the floor.

_I don’t have to kill you, Lena, you’re already dead._

If nothing else, Edge made her briefly consider ways to make cells bulletproof and impervious. Tiny bulletproof boxes to put each cell in like bubble-wrapped Christmas packages until an entire body was safe. Immortality at the molecular level, immortality to cure what makes the human body weak, immortality as a means to infinitely exist with someone like Kara who would remain standing when others fell. It was her poetic _love among the ruins_ dream and she wasn’t ashamed to want this, to want and to choose something that lasted when everything else around her was lost. Lena was not above being dramatic and grand in her visions, she would grant that.

But what good was a dream and a forgotten poem when the only one left to remember would be Kara because now the world around Lena went black. She marveled at the science of her own dying. Her very human body and its millions of mortal cells were reacting to noxious chemicals in a very predictable way. She was only surprised by the fact that she could see it happening, the way darkness seeped inside of her and blinded her eyes. The only consolation, really, the only good thing that she held onto as consciousness escaped was that Lena felt something warm and electric wash across her face. After everything, it seemed fitting that science turned to magic at a time like this. Here was a singular feeling and it had nothing to do with ruins, nothing to do with loss, and everything to do with love.

“I’ve got her!”

And in the darkness, a bright light. _Kara_. Always Kara.

***

_Lena sat in the dark of her apartment with a bottle of water and the low lights keeping her company. It was late and she had finally, finally started feeling better after a day of fever dream napping. Her head had pounded in the morning after too much wine and a harrowing near miss as her body slammed down with the weight of a plane and Kara trying to hold everything together like she always did. She had survived Edge’s attempt on her life, of course, and Supergirl had saved the water supply like a superhero who could do the impossible. She had woken in the morning to Kara gently trying to soothe and doctor her hangover and body bruises. But it was Kara’s declaration of love so casually given that had lulled Lena into that uneasy space between wonder and fear._

_Losing hours of the day to the physical manifestations of almost dying made Lena pensive. She was still fighting the grogginess of a concussive blow and pistol whipping, The lump on the back of her head from Edge’s hired gun was a tender ball of pain that sleep couldn’t fix. It was a reminder that she would likely never feel safe, as if that feeling were at all familiar. There was only one place she truly felt safe in this world and to say Kara’s name out loud as that new found place was to invite bad luck. This feeling was like the most newborn of things - achingly tender and delicate - but nothing that could be taken for granted. She had a hard time believing in it because to believe was to hope and such things had to be hidden away before they were taken. Lillian saw to that when she was too small to realize that things that died were never coming back until they didn’t. Her head hurt at the thoughts so she closed her eyes as she waited._

_Soft ring tones in a minor chord interrupted a dream. In that fugue state, she found herself frantically running through a darkened garden full of twisting vines and silver flowers and cages of snarling animals, fleeing but never escaping, searching but never finding. It was familiar and strange all at once in that disorienting way. With a gasp, Lena grappled for the phone near her face and clicked the green button._

_“...hey…”_

_Kara’s soft voice in her ear made her heart stop pounding even if her body still felt the pull of midnight in the garden of Luthor. Kara’s pull was stronger though._

_“..Hi..uh, what time is it?”_

_She cleared her throat as she spoke, trying to orient in the dark room after days that merged into each other and Lena was at a loss._

_“It’s 1 my time..I’m sorry I woke you..we can talk tomorrow if you want..”_

_Lena leaned up on her elbow and ran a hand through her hair trying to get the tangle of black out of her eyes._

_“No no...I’m fine..did you make it home okay?”_

_“Mm hmm, we left just after work. I meant to stop by before I left but..I needed to get Alex out of there, away from everything..”_

_Lena felt herself nodding in the dark as she shifted on her too-formal couch and stretched, trying to magically make the throbbing in her head go away with a change of position. Alex and Maggie had just broken up, two people who wanted different things calling it quits and Kara’s sister was a mess of emotions. From the jumbled texts she got from Maggie earlier during her lost day, so was the NCPD detective. Kara had sent word of the impromptu trip to MIdvale somewhere in the late afternoon. “I need to go home’ was all that Kara had said and Lena felt a pang of something that told her that home meant different things to different people, especially someone like Kara. And someone like her. Now, all she could do was listen for Kara in the middle of the night._

_“Yes, of course..I’m glad she has you..”_

_Alex had Kara and Kara had Alex and they both had Eliza and Lena was in an empty penthouse apartment trying to settle the way she felt._

_“I’m about to take her some tea, we have to share our old bedroom tonight so wish me luck. She’s already found the Danvers whiskey. How you holding up? I’ve been worried…”_

_Lena could almost see the crinkle of concern on Kara’s brow and it flared a feeling that she couldn’t quite name. It was the uncomfortable feeling of someone caring too much about her that made Lena shift and bristle in ways she didn’t like._

_“I am capable of taking care of myself, Kara.”_

_She didn’t mean it to sound like it did, like she was convincing someone else who hadn’t even questioned that. Lena heard Kara sigh._

_“I’m aware.”_

_Lena waited because she heard the pause and the distance between where she was and where Kara was, hours apart but feeling further for no other reason than dreamy silver flowers and dark garden paths, white teeth and a near goodbye high above National City’s reservoir._

_“You know, Lena, Eliza said something to me just a bit ago on the porch. She told me that it was better to lean into how you feel than to pretend you’re fine.”_

_Lena felt heat against her cheeks and she kicked off the thin blanket tangled around her legs, holding her in place and trapping her on her couch._

_“Are you suggesting I’m not fine?”_

_“Lena. No. What I’m saying is that you don’t have to pretend with me. Someone tried to kill you. You asked me to save the chemicals and not you. You were prepared to die. You don’t just shrug that kind of thing off.”_

_“We do...”_

_Lena could hear her own voice, quiet and resolute. Kara’s was softly confused._

_“Who is we?”_

_“My family. Me. I learned a hard lesson a long time ago. Nothing is forever. The people you love, the life you make. We only have a short period of time on this earth and you get used to the fact that when it’s your time…”_

_“Stop.”_

_Kara’s voice was sharp and Lena could hear a screen door slamming shut, breaths in her ear as Kara walked and continued._

_“Do you know how incredibly frustrating it is for me to hear you say things like that, Lena? Do you have any idea? You have this one precious life and you treat dying like it’s just another day at the office. I can’t save you from being human, I can’t make you invincible, I can’t keep you safe forever. If I’m lucky, you’ll grow old in my arms and I’ll have to keep existing without you. If I’m unlucky, you could be gone tomorrow and I’ll have to live without you even longer. Everyone I love right now will be gone in the blink of an eye and I’ll still be here because of alien biology. I either have to get used to that or…”_

_Here, there was a pause and Lena heard Kara take in a deep breath. She tried to imagine her, standing out in a yard somewhere in Midvale in the middle of the night looking up at the stars. Lena tried to imagine Kara creating and recreating a life here on earth and a home populated with different people who grew old while she stayed young, who suffered while she thrived, who died while Kara lived on and on. She imagined Kara hugging herself with one arm, the other holding a phone to her ear and talking to someone who was resigned to the fact that living on a daily basis as a Luthor meant preparing for the worse. She didn’t have a death wish, she just was pragmatic about her chances. Or so she told herself. But she wasn’t in the arguing mood, not with Kara, not now._

_“Kara..I’m sorry…”_

_Lena started and softened her voice, closing her eyes again as she breathed out._

_“I can’t imagine…”_

_She stopped again, because to imagine her life without Kara in it was new and painful. Lena had been careful over the years, she had been choosy, she had kept the things and people she held dear very close and away from the Luthors. She hadn’t imagined meeting someone like Kara because how could she? How could she imagine falling in love with someone who was miraculous and impossible and nearly impervious to the dangers of living a human life? How could she imagine someone having to figuratively and literally choose between dropping a plane and dropping her? Instead, Lena thought about how she had been pressed to the bottom of a steel cylinder half-plane, looking up at the only thing keeping her alive, the only person who cared enough about her to show up. And keep showing up._

_“I love you...”_

_Lena said it so softly that she wasn’t sure it carried across time and space but she felt it so hard and so sure that saying it out loud made her feel more alive than ever. She had fallen in love with Kara Zor-El, sure as anything she could touch or see. To pretend otherwise, to act otherwise, only made Lena a liar when lying would hurt someone who could live a very long time with that. The last time she had said those words to Kara, so directly, so truthfully, was in a last minute transmission from a Daxamite ship in hopes that Kara heard it and with no sure way of knowing if it would be the last time Lena would have the chance to say it. As casual as Lena was at the possibility of her own death, she never really considered what it might mean for Kara. She never thought that the detached way she accepted her fate would have a profound effect on how Kara came to terms with her own. Lena heard an exhale across the line and felt connected to something other than her own thoughts in the dark._

_“Lena..”_

_“Yes..”_

_She was breathless because she realized, exactly and sharply, how very little time she had with someone who had more than she could imagine. Lena briefly considered asking the superhero to leave her family and fly across the sky for her, a bright impossible shooting star on a mission to save her from herself. Instead, Lena curled into her couch and pretended she was fine as Kara’s voice washed over her._

_“I love you too...if I were there, I’d wrap you up in my arms..you know I would..”_

_“..I do..”_

_“..hold you tight...kiss you so softly...I’m not going anywhere, Lena..I’m right here with you...”_

_“..thank you..”_

_“..I got you...I got you..”_

_She closed her eyes once again, thinking about Kara trying to keep everything together for everyone else. For Lena, for Alex, for National City, for a planet she now called home and wondered the weight. Was she too heavy for a superhero to carry? Lena had always been someone who had a lot under the surface, Lex accusing her once of being an iceberg waiting to silently sink ships who came too close. She thought of that now, how her sharper, colder edges were hidden until it was too late. Lena drifted, sleep pulling at her again as Kara’s soft words and steady breathing in her ear lulled her deeper into herself and deeper into the night._

***

In this dream, she was flying and Kara was there, carrying her through a sky as blue as lapis lazuli and Lena felt safe. She was weightless and free, unburdened by everything that came with gravity and being in the world. Lena didn’t think about work, she didn’t think about her mortality, she thought of nothing except how a superhero’s arms could make her feel. Alive, soaring, above all the worries and the problems and the stress of leading companies with boards and profit margins and thousands of employees all looking to her for the answers. If she had chosen a path or her path was chosen for her mattered little up here in the atmosphere. Lena was lightweight and made of air, zipping through it and unafraid of the height. She could taste the clouds, electric and sugar sweet. She could see the curve of the earth from here, the sun warming her face and her body until she was nothing and everything at the same time. For once, Lena understood why Kara loved the air and why she always itched to be in it. She got it. It was freedom in its purest form.

It was freedom until it transformed into something else entirely and she felt herself tumble out of Kara’s arms and there was nothing she could do to break her fall. Pain like she never knew before started searing through her body as she cratered into the ground, cracking the earth with her impact and it felt like every bone in her body broke apart into pieces. Lena couldn’t move, she couldn’t speak, she could only start sinking into the ground now turned into tar, black liquified earth sticky and impossible sucked her further down. She was frantic to escape but her body was no longer her own to control and all she could do was watch herself. She was as white as a bleached shell disappearing into the thick oily glue that burned from the inside out. Kara was nowhere to be found and briefly, fleetingly, Lena wondered if she was dying in her dream or in real life. Either way, she felt the loss in every single cell of her body. With a sharp pain, Lena inhaled and all of a sudden, everything hurt and her world was coming back into focus.

“..uh..what happened?”

She felt herself mumble and stretch, blinking her eyes open and clutching at her stomach. Lena was in National City, she was at CatCo, she was in James’ office, she was stretched across Kara’s lap with firm hands holding her legs. She was alive.

“Hey..take it easy, okay?”

James’ voice reached her ears as he stood across from them, concern etched on his face. As she slowly regained consciousness, Kara looked at her carefully, helping her sit up. She groaned and put a hand to her head, the throbbing dull ache of pain radiated through her body as James brought a glass of water to her. She tried to put the pieces back together, her memory of what happened mixing just as deeply with what she imagined.

“I had the strangest dream..”

Lena looked over to Kara and took a breath.

“You were flying and you were carrying me..”

What she neglected to say was what happened next, what happened after, that black pit opening and sucking her in. It was too much to make sense of and right now, she wasn’t ready to talk about it with James or even Kara. She rubbed her jaw and closed her eyes.

“Why do I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck?”

James sat down on the couch across from them while Kara let her hand rub against Lena’s back. It made her feel slightly better, if only to remind her that whatever happened was over and she was back to something normal. That is, if waking up in CatCo after a blackout was normal. It wasn’t a surprise either which said something too. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Kara look at James before she spoke.

“Um..you were poisoned.”

That got her attention and suddenly, Lena remembered bits and pieces, the smell of almonds and the acrid taste in her mouth. She looked over at Kara before James spoke, pausing briefly in between his words.

“It was the coffee. Kara acted very quickly and got you to Alex. They gave you an antidote. They said you need to rest.”

Lena put the words together with her last memories and the morning came back crystalized and clear.

“It was Edge, wasn’t it?”

Lena looked at Kara who took a deep breath and she realized that the superhero was shaking slightly, the atoms just under the surface of her skin bouncing in disarray and chaos. She wondered how close she came this time, now that her near-death was confirmed and the experience she had was real. Or at least most of it was real. The thought of losing everything she loved made Lena clench her jaw as rage now seeped into her. That some mere mortal man, Morgan Edge, would try again and again to bring her down and destroy her ignited something raw and seething in her. She felt Kara’s hand on her arm and she stood, her legs feeling leaden but full of purpose. This had to stop and she was going to make it so.

“He wants a war, he’s got one. I’m the only one who can protect myself.”

Her voice was shaking slightly because this time, she meant it. She would get to Edge before he got to her again. She had the Luthors to thank for her resolve to be ruthless if need be. The fact that she hadn’t had time to pull that trigger the first time made her narrow her eyes. He got lucky then and that was about to run out now. Kara stood and came over to her, putting her hands out as she talked.

“Lena, no, you are not a killer.”

In the back of her mind, Lena saw a tar pit of blackness and remembered how it felt to sink further and further away. If life and death was a science and the Luthors had perfected the means of achieving one or both, then Lena was not about to give up everything she loved because of some man. She couldn't let Kara live with her death, carrying Lena with her like a promise that never came true. Kara wouldn’t like what Lena would do when push came to shove. A threat to her was a threat to Kara and that was something Lena would not tolerate, no matter the cost. Solve the problem, Lena.

“Yeah, Kara? Maybe you don’t know what I am.”

Kara looked at her like she had been punched by Lena’s words but because she was made of steel, Kara didn’t flinch. Maybe saying those words out loud shifted something between them. Maybe it was just enough to loosen what held everything together to form tiny cracks that only the fear of losing one another could bring. If Lena had been looking close enough, seeing beyond her own quiet rage, she would have seen the way the light changed. Maybe the unraveling started to happen without either one of them noticing.

***

The gray rain continued outside and Lena continued with it, clinically, objectively, scientifically.

“..subject 0331 exhibited what can be considered extra human powers for precisely three minutes and fourteen seconds. Time of death for 3am. Despite the expiration of the subject, the trial reaped new and critical information on the human genome. Future trials run at an 87% probability of success. Payment will be sent to the subject’s next of kin.”

She stood and moved towards the window of her office and wondered if there was the option of turning back now. Lena was on a path of her own creation, shaped by events long ago and recent. What would turning back now look like when she was so close? Human hearts and hearts made of steel and hearts full of fire and brimstone - she had studied them all. The answer to death was life and solving for life sometimes meant extraordinary risks and priceless costs and endless paths. From where she stood now, Lena knew the way back wasn’t an option anymore. When you justify the means, the end no longer mattered. The only problem she hadn’t solved with any probability of success was the most important one.

 _Kara_. Always Kara.

The night grew darker as a steady rain streaked the windows and blurred the way she saw the world. Lena Luthor was at a crossroads between life and death and she knew that. As she looked out across National City’s glowing profile, she let her mind turn to something she had read long ago, up late and buried in the stacks of Hayden Library overlooking a black, churning Charles River. Boston had been a cold and haunting place, but she found respite in the books and ideas and discoveries she made there. She had memorized and tucked away the things that meant something to her, that stirred feelings of longing and love..and loss. Lena was not immune to such things no matter how hard she tried.

_“Hummingbirds, like all flying birds but more so, have incredible enormous immense ferocious metabolisms. To drive those metabolisms they have race-car hearts that eat oxygen at an eye-popping rate. Their hearts are built of thinner, leaner fibers than ours. Their arteries are stiffer and more taut. They have more mitochondria in their heart muscles—anything to gulp more oxygen. Their hearts are stripped to the skin for the war against gravity and inertia, the mad search for food, the insane idea of flight. The price of their ambition is a life closer to death; they suffer more heart attacks and aneurysms and ruptures than any other living creature. It’s expensive to fly. You burn out. You fry the machine. You melt the engine. Every creature on earth has approximately two billion heartbeats to spend in a lifetime. You can spend them slowly... or you can spend them fast...”_

Her phone buzzed and she looked back at her desk, a text with a name etched deep into her own heart flashed across the screen and lit up her office in a golden glow.

_I have something to tell you_


End file.
